Ricardo Bañuelas

Key ingredients for the effective implementation of Six Sigma program

Six Sigma is a business strategy and a systematic methodology, use of which leads to breakthrough in profitability through quantum gains in product/service quality, customer satisfaction and productivity. The concept of implementing Six Sigma processes was pioneered at Motorola in the 1980s and the objective was to reduce the number of defects to as low as 3.4 parts per million opportunities. For the effective implementation of Six Sigma projects in organisations, one must understand the critical success factors that will make the application successful. This paper presents the key ingredients, which are essential for Six Sigma implementation. These ingredients are generated from a pilot survey conducted in the UK manufacturing and service organisations.

Going from six sigma to design for six sigma: an exploratory study using analytic hierarchy process

Six sigma has been considered a business strategy that employs a well‐structured continuous improvement methodology to tackle process variability and drive out waste from the business processes using statistical tools and techniques. This paper first examines the differences and similarities of six‐sigma improvement methodology compared with the DFSS approach. This work illustrates the use of analytical hierarchy process (AHP), a multiple criteria decision‐making technique, for the evaluation of six‐sigma projects in order to determine when the six‐sigma approach becomes a priority over DFSS. The use of AHP to determine the transition from six sigma to design for six sigma represents a major challenge to many researchers today, as very little has been done on this subject.

Selection of six sigma projects in the UK

Purpose – The literature suggests that a key ingredient for the successful six sigma implementation is project prioritisation and selection. The purpose of this paper is to identify what criteria are considered for selecting six sigma projects and how six sigma projects are selected in organisations in the UK.Design/methodology/approach – Using a survey as a method of investigation, respondents were asked what criteria are considered to select projects and how potential projects are identified, prioritised, selected and evaluated.Findings – The results of the survey indicate that UK organisations tend to select projects based on criteria such as customer satisfaction, financial benefits, top management commitment and those projects integrated with the companys strategy. Several tools and techniques such as cost benefit analysis, cause and effect matrix, brainstorming, Pareto analysis are employed to identify and prioritise projects.Research limitations/implications – This paper is limited to the selectio...

Modified analytic hierarchy process to incorporate uncertainty and managerial aspects

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a powerful multiple-criteria decision analysis technique for dealing with complex problems. Traditional AHP forces decision-makers to converge vague judgements to single numeric preferences in order to estimate the pairwise comparisons of all pairs of objectives and decision alternatives required in the AHP. The resultant rankings of alternatives cannot be tested for statistical significance and it lacks a systematic approach that addresses managerial/soft aspects. To overcome the above limitations, the present paper presents a modified analytic hierarchy process, which incorporates probabilistic distributions to include uncertainty in the judgements. The vector of priorities is calculated using Monte Carlo simulation. The final rankings are analysed for rank reversal using analysis of variance, and managerial aspects (stake holder analysis, soft system methods, etc.) are introduced systematically. The focus is on the actual methodology of the modified analytic hierarchy process, which is illustrated by a brief account of a case study.

Application of stochastic analytic hierarchy process within a domestic appliance manufacturer

The stochastic analytic hierarchy process (SAHP) provides a mechanism for achieving more effective selection of alternatives in the form of considering multi and conflicting criteria using quantitative and qualitative information under uncertainty. In contrast to the traditional analytic hierarchy process, the SAHP uses probabilistic distributions to incorporate uncertainty that people have in converging their judgements of preferences into a Likert scale. The vector of priorities is calculated using Monte Carlo simulation, the final rankings are analysed for rank reversal using statistical analysis, and managerial aspects are introduced systematically. The present paper demonstrates an application of the SAHP in a world-class domestic appliance manufacturer. The case study was carried out by strictly following a disciplined and organized methodology for applying the SAHP developed by the authors. The results of this study were encouraging to key personnel within the company, establishing a greater opportunity to explore the applications of the SAHP in other core business processes.

Assessing the role of Six Sigma in a supply chain: an exploratory study in the UK manufacturing organisations

The aim of this paper is to investigate the status of Six Sigma implementation in supply chain in the UK. The first part of the paper comprises a review of the literature of Six Sigma implementation in the supply chain. The paper then reports the results of a postal questionnaire survey. The results of the survey indicated that around 50% of the UK manufacturing organisations surveyed implement Six Sigma in the supply chain. However, only a small number of them include the entire supply chain in their Six Sigma projects. Simple graphical tools are preferred over more complex techniques during Six Sigma supply chain projects. Cost, quality and delivery are the main focus of Six Sigma projects. It was found that lack of know-how and resources are the major constrains for companies not implementing Six Sigma in the supply chain. The description of the status of Six Sigma implementation of Six Sigma in the supply chain provides an insight into the current practices and help companies as a benchmarking exercise including tools and techniques, fundamental metrics, potential savings and reasons for potential failures among others. This study is limited to UK manufacturing organisations. Further empirical studies using larger sample sizes and greater geographical diversity may be helpful in validating the results of this study.